More Articles

View SlideshowRequest to buy this photoFred Squillante | DISPATCHA company’s 50-year, $483 million lease of Ohio State’s parking operations has allowed the university to progress on many fronts, while making $50 million on the investment.

Leasing its parking operation to a private group has allowed Ohio State University to offer new
scholarships to top students, start hiring 500 leading scholars and increase training for other
campus employees.

“The great thing is that we’re able to do all of this without raising tuition, asking for more
state money or extending our hands to donors for money,” interim OSU President Joseph A. Alutto
said.

CampusParc took over daily operation of Ohio State’s 36,000 parking spaces last September as
part of a 50-year,

$483 million lease agreement. The group is the business arm of QIC Global Infrastructure and its
partner in the deal, LAZ Parking.

Even after a year, people have strong feelings about the deal. Some hail it as a savvy financial
move, and others decry poor service.

“The university sold out to a private contractor just to get a big fat payday upfront without
any regard for students, faculty or staff,” said one Wexner Medical Center employee who asked to
remain anonymous because of fear of getting in trouble at work.

Critics of the deal often complain about long lines in parking garages, malfunctioning equipment
and poor customer service. They also say it has become increasingly difficult to find a space,
as

CampusParc tweaks what

passes are allowed where.

Others praise the company for offering more choices to parkers and paying Ohio State millions of
dollars that help the school attract the best students and faculty members.

“People hate to pay to park and are going to complain no matter who is running the operation,”
said Sarah Blouch, who was OSU’s director of transportation and parking services before becoming
president of CampusParc last year.

The company faces the same challenges the university has struggled with for years, she said.
That includes unexpected equipment problems such as the elevator cables in the Lane Avenue garage
breaking the day before student move-in day in the fall; garages that are closed for repairs and
renovations; and complaints from people who can’t find spaces near their destination.

CampusParc has worked hard to resolve problems, Blouch said. It also has invested $11 million in
improvements since taking over. And it is committed to making at least $14 million more in upgrades
over the next four years, as is called for in its agreement with Ohio State.

Blouch refused to say how much money the group made in its first year.

Among the recent improvements:

• CampusParc’s website now tells people whether space is available in each OSU garage. The
widget is refreshed every five minutes and is readable on any smartphone.

• Parkers can pay to park on any surface lot from their cellphone using parkmobile.com. They
also can receive text-message alerts 15 minutes before their time expires.

• New technology can verify that a vehicle has a permit by scanning its license plate.
CampusParc also has added more pay machines to accommodate visitors.

• The company has renovated several garages, including Arps, which reopened this fall.
Renovations have begun on the North and South Cannon garages.

• CampusParc extended overnight parking in the Lane Avenue and W. Lane Avenue garages to
sophomores. Before, the permits were available only to juniors and seniors. It also has begun
selling multipacks of discount vouchers good in any campus garage, including Gateway.

To provide research opportunities, the company also has challenged a group of students to come
up with a solar-panel prototype that could be used above OSU’s parking garages, Blouch said.
Another group is working on an environmentally friendly paving material for a new parking lot at
the university wetlands.

“There were some rough spots initially, but I think CampusParc is providing as good, if not even
better, service than the university did,” said Jay Kasey, OSU’s senior vice president for
administration and planning. He added that the company embraced technology much faster than the
university probably would have.

But the biggest benefit is the money that is now available for academic programs, said Provost
Joseph E. Steinmetz.

The $483 million cash infusion into OSU’s endowment generated more than $50 million, said
Geoffrey Chatas, the university’s chief financial officer. That’s largely because the university’s
long-term investment pool earned 11.6 percent — higher than the expected annual return of 9 percent
on the endowment.

Of the $50 million, about

$20 million has gone to initiatives that support teaching, learning, research and
transportation, including:

• A new Eminence Fellowship program created to attract the nation’s best students. The
university expects to fund 25 full-ride awards annually, plus a $3,000 enrichment grant after the
first year.

• A large-scale effort to hire 500 tenured and tenure-track professors over the next decade in
three emerging fields: health and wellness, energy and environment, and food production and safety.
Ohio State hopes to hire as many as 70 professors as part of the first phase. It is looking for
experts in data analytics because officials say data are important to each of the three emerging
fields.

Last winter, IBM announced it will create a data center in Columbus and is teaming up with Ohio
State to develop courses and arrange teaching opportunities for big-data professionals.

“I don’t know of any other school in the country that has committed to hiring 500 faculty
members over the next